(I am still trying to play catch-up on  my older blog posts!)

We have bears up here but we rarely see them. Other people have reported sightings, and we've caught them on our game cameras that are down by the pond but seeing one around the cabin? No, only once that I can remember and that was years and years ago.

A couple of weeks ago we were driving into town when I spotted a black animal on a hillside. It moved and I said to Rick, that's a bear! It was just a small black bear and when he saw our vehicle he started to run. And let me tell you, that bear could run! 

He ended up running straight down the middle of the road in front of us before he veered off in sage and kept right on running. It was an unusual sight for sure.

The very next morning I got up and opened the curtains, checking out the meadow before I let the dogs out. To my great surprise I saw a bear with two cubs in our yard. I think I casually said to Rick, oh there's a bear in our yard! I guess I was kind of casual about it because it was a very common sight in New Jersey where we lived to see bears in the yard. She looke pretty comfy with the bird feeder pulled to the ground and was munching happily away on bird seed.

One cub was sticking pretty close to mamma, while the other little cub was a bit more brave. I don't think this is the first time this crew has visited since one other time when we were gone for a few days we came home to having the bird feeding station askew (instead of on the ground like this time) and the bird waterer base was unscrewed from the top and on the other side of the fence. As you can see in the pics below, junior is having a great time batting that very same waterer around! Maybe it's really a bear toy?

He was just having a great time using our fence as a balance beam.

I think I'll just walk along here for a little ways ....

Maybe I"ll just kind of sit here for awhile ...

We watched all the silly antics for awhile, just because watching cubs play is so darned cute. They are such little kids! And so smart as well. But, enough was enough and we don't want them feeling comfortable hanging out in our fenced yard, so Rick got the rifle out and went outside to fire it off over their heads to scare them away. I laughed myself silly at the little cub's reaction to Rick coming out of the house.

Whoa, mom ... what the heck is that big white thing?

Time to leave!

And over the fence they went. Well, almost all of them anyway. The littlest cub could not figure out how to get over the fence and was pitifully mewling for mamma, who was by then all the way to the edge of the Ewok Forest, running back and forth next to the fence line. Mamma looked as if she was thinking about coming back for it and I was also just about to go out and open the gate for the poor little thing when it finally figured it out and climbed over and went lickety-split to mamma.

You were adorable bear family but we'd rather you didn't come back for a repeat visit anytime soon!